Laura thought she had better not seem anxious to take him, so she left the task of persuasion, to the others, and Amy went on.
‘Neither Mamma nor Charlie could bear to think you stayed because of him.’
‘I don’t, I assure you, Amy. I meant it before. I have been gradually finding out that it must come to this.’
‘Oh, you think it a matter of right and wrong! But you don’t think balls wrong?’
‘Oh no; only they won’t do for such an absurd person as I am. The last turned my head for a week, and I am much too unsteady for this.’
‘Well, if you think it a matter of duty, it can’t be helped,’ said Amy sorrowfully; ‘but I am very sorry.’
‘Thank you,’ said Guy, thinking it compassion, not regret; ‘but I shall do very well. I shall be all the happier to-morrow for a quiet hour at my Greek, and you’ll tell me all the fun.’
‘You liked it so much!’ said Amy; ‘but you have made up your mind and I ought not to tease you.’
‘That’s right Amy; he does it on purpose to be teased,’ said Eveleen, ‘and I never knew anybody so provoking. Mind, Sir Guy, if you make us all too late, you shan’t have the ghost of a quadrille with me.’
‘I shall console myself by quadrilling with Andromache,’ said Guy.